Have you ever made pasta and after draining the water the pasta is sticky? Ugh, is all I have to say about that!  I am all about Simplicity in the kitchen so don’t fret, I will let you in on a little secret on helping reduce the sticky out of your pasta! 

Once you have put your water in the pan to cook your pasta just grab your pam and spray the top of the water and then give your water a little stir so when you add your pasta and cook it, it will come out smoother! Ta-Dah! Simple & Quick Trick that puts Simplicity back into your Kitchen! Now who doesn’t love that!

Well Hello There!

The above image is our “New Girl” and we need a name for her.  So we are asking for your help!  All you have to do is leave a comment with the name you think we should use to name our “New Girl”.   So get your creative juices going and submit the name you think we should use.  There will be one winner that will receive a $50 American Express Gift Card. 

She will be used on a lot of things including our blog, as a watermark, on marketing materials and so forth.

There will also be a random comment entry winner that will be picked from a random number generator.  So even if the name you submitted doesn’t get picked your comment will be entered into a random number contest, for a $25 American Express Gift Card

The Rules:

1. Leave a comment on this post, before midnight EST Wednesday, June 11, 2008.

2. Make sure to provide your e-mail address and phone number so we can notify you that you have won!

3. We will announce the winner here on Monday, June 23, 2008 and we will also e-mail the winner to notify him/her.

4. The winner must release a photograph to Simplicity Gourmet of his/her image for any web or print media.

5. You can only enter once!

**We reserve the right to not use the name submitted, but a winner will be chosen for best creativity!**

Good luck!

My kids which are 5 and 3 and they are soooo worried about hurrying up and eating so they can go play or they have no desire to eat what I fixed b/c it’s those YUCKY things (as my 5 yr. old calls them) called vegetables. So I was reading in this book and heard that if you make the dining experience enjoyable then they will be more engaged in eating than running off.  I thought to my self this is a scam, it couldn’t be real that it was just that simple.  So I went to the store and bought 6 little candles (a little bigger than tealights) and 1 big candle and I lined them down my dining room table.  At dinner I lit the candles and called them up for dinner.  THEY LOVED THE CANDLES, they thought it was so cool.  So I told them if you eat  half of your food you get to blow out 3 candles each, BUT if you eat all your food you get to blow out ALL the Candles including the Big one.  Now, I would have to light the candles again for my 2 yr old. when she was done but it works.  Not to mention it was a relaxing atmosphere.   Try it, what do you have to lose?  Remember a Family that eats together stays together!

So here’s to setting the mood!